I haven't heard the term "zone 2" cardio -- can you expand on that?
Zone 2 is your easy pace. The pace you do most of your running at. It's not so fast where you need much of recovery but it's fast enough to achieve the adaptations you need.
Here's part of a talk by famed running coach Jack Daniels on the benefits of easy running: https://youtu.be/veAQ73OJdwY
If you don't believe in formulas, run at a pace in which you can hold a conversation or speak a few sentences without losing your breath.
[1] https://www.polar.com/blog/running-heart-rate-zones-basics/
I know I can't run. Never could. My lungs just close up after even a short run and the rest of my body promptly follows.
I could walk though but despite walking few kilometers each day this summer best I could do was squeeze a minute or two of running into my walking.
And even walking ended when my feet arches began to hurt from overuse. Since then I stopped walking regularly and switched to 'barefoot' shoes and my left foot pretty much healed but the overuse injury in the right one pops back up when I walk for about an hour. I am not overweight and have high feet arches.
- "Rest" on Mondays - walk 6K or bike 10K
- 7K run on Tuesdays
- "Rest" on Wednesdays - 10K biking
- 7K run on Thursdays
- Rest on Friday; just daily life walking/bicycling
- 5K run on Saturdays
- 10K run on Sundays[1]
Most importantly, pay attention to diet (a whole another beast). As the saying goes, "you can't out-run a bad diet!"
And here's[2] my silly 'retro' of my most recent half marathon.
[1] When training for a race, I gradually increase the Sunday distance to 13K, 15K, and 18K; reserve the best for the race day. "Taper off" the intensity of running in the last week before the race. (Specific to my situation, in retrospect, all the city bicycling I was doing as part of daily life here must've contributed to my running too. So take that "hidden training" into account too.)
[2] https://kashyapc.fedorapeople.org/half-m-Bruges-retro.html
Fyi: you might want to add the "half" word from earlier in your post into this sentence as well. 2 hours is a very respectable half marathon pace. For a full marathon, it's Olympian!
Glad to hear you're enjoying running. I also transitioned from "long walks almost every day" to "wow i can actually run pretty well" and I have just one piece of advice...
Don't get too into the stats. It's much more fun if you don't agonize over the optimizations, IMO.
Oh, and if you normally trail run with headphones and listen to music or podcasts, every once in a while try going without the headphones. I find I have my best ideas on runs where all I can hear is nature.
Nice work yourself on your transition, go you! :-)
Two hours for a full marathon was the "Breaking 2" project[1] that Eliud Kipchoge finally achieved. It's inhumanly lung-busting. I wouldn't get there in a million lifetimes!
On stats: totally! I'm not at all obsessing over it; just using high-level stats as a moderate motivation. I also don't look at my watch (only use it for running) at every lap or anything like that.
Headphones: I have a rule of "no music at all" for running. It's my way to tame the inner dragons! (For walks, I do use the headphones, though. And you're totally right on mixing it up; neuroscience backs up your suggestion too.)
FWIW, I shared the story because going from "no runner" a year ago to "finishes half marathons without stopping" with a modest pace might still be interesting (sorry for bragging :-)).
This year I ran two half-marathons (one in Bruges last month), and went for another "half-marathon forest hike" last weekend.
I had no idea I could run these longer distances, and was not even planning to run. I activated this "latent" potential by a happy accident. Earlier this February, when talking about running with a friend of a friend, she casually said "why don't you register for the half-marathon at this gorgeous nature trail[1]?" I said, "hmm, I never ran more than 7K, and the half-marathon is only 50 days away." "Just register, you'll do fine!", she said. I did register, and diligently trained for exactly about 45 days.
Lo and behold! I completed the first marathon in April in 2h:12m; and the second one last month in 2h:9m. Both of them without stopping. I'm still surprised by myself; if that acquaintance hadn't pushed me a little bit, I wouldn't have bothered with half-marathons. Now I'm hooked. I'm calling my next half-marathon as "cracking 2" (running it under 2 hours). Some runners here might recognize the term "breaking 2" ;-)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonian_Forest